libvirt 9.0 Released For Latest Linux Virtualization API

[phoronix]

Phoronix: libvirt 9.0 Released For Latest Linux Virtualization API

Libvirt 9.0 was released on Monday as the newest version of this Linux Virtualization API. This virtualization API backed by Red Hat continues to support a wide range of hypervisors and with the v9.0 release has added additional functionality...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/libvirt-9.0

[jacob]

This looks like a great release.

[mangeek]

Is Libvirt behind what QEMU uses to generate the XML definitions for VMs? I've been frustrated by things like virt-manager not being able to create emulated machines for alternative targets. For example, I get 'No PCI Device' error when creating an m68k machine of the 'virt' type. I know I can work around it, but seems like the default machine types in QEMUor virt-manager don't always include the correct & working initial emulated hardware.

[mantide]

I don't use libvirt at all, instead I use qemu command line only on a daily basis. I keep have the feeling that I miss some benefit here but I have never been convinced that libvirt adds any value. I am able to do performance tuning, cpu pinning and thing like that just fine. Could anyone share the benefit of libvirt with me?

[RahulSundaram]

I don't use libvirt at all, instead I use qemu command line only on a daily basis. I keep have the feeling that I miss some benefit here but I have never been convinced that libvirt adds any value. I am able to do performance tuning, cpu pinning and thing like that just fine. Could anyone share the benefit of libvirt with me?

Libvirt supports far more than just qemu and provides an API that many applications use. If command line qemu is your only use case, a multi hypervisor library isn't of much use to you.

[zexelon]

I don't use libvirt at all, instead I use qemu command line only on a daily basis. I keep have the feeling that I miss some benefit here but I have never been convinced that libvirt adds any value. I am able to do performance tuning, cpu pinning and thing like that just fine. Could anyone share the benefit of libvirt with me?

Simply put in your case, libvirt would probably be of very limited to no benefit and more likely would just get in the way. Libvirt comes into play when you are spooling up and managing large fleets of virtual machines across numerous bare metal hosts. Yes you could do it all from the cli to, but libvirt makes it much nicer and centralizes things.

Also when you get into more complex vm definitions the cli arguments for QEMU can become real bear to manage, even if your scripting it out in say bash. Libvirt abstracts a lot of that away.

[RahulSundaram]

Is Libvirt behind what QEMU uses to generate the XML definitions for VMs? I've been frustrated by things like virt-manager not being able to create emulated machines for alternative targets. For example, I get 'No PCI Device' error when creating an m68k machine of the 'virt' type. I know I can work around it, but seems like the default machine types in QEMUor virt-manager don't always include the correct & working initial emulated hardware.

Sounds like a bug you should report to virt manager. Virt manager uses libvirt as a library but applications are responsible for the VM definitions.

[zexelon]

Key question, have they figured out yet how to enable VM snapshots of UEFI VMs yet??? I cant find any mention of changes to this issue yet. Its 2023 and still looks like you can only do disk-only snapshots of UEFI vms...

[etam]

I don't use libvirt at all, instead I use qemu command line only on a daily basis. I keep have the feeling that I miss some benefit here but I have never been convinced that libvirt adds any value. I am able to do performance tuning, cpu pinning and thing like that just fine. Could anyone share the benefit of libvirt with me?

1) For me writing raw qemu commands is almost like magic. Getting all the `-device` flags right would be a nightmare. With virt-manager I can do it with few clicks, almost like in VirtualBox.
2) With virt-manager I can manage VMs running on remote servers. It works over ssh, so no special networking or services configuration is required.

[Hibbelharry]

Libvirtd also offers a handy tool do detach vm instances from user login sessions.